


Blood In The Water

by Sawsbuck Coffee (RosesAndTheInternet)



Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Dark Academia, F/F, F/M, M/M, alternate choosing, taking severe liberties with canon, tris is biracial and bisexual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23754796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosesAndTheInternet/pseuds/Sawsbuck%20Coffee
Summary: It's true that it takes only a single spark to ignite change. Beatrice Prior knew she never belonged in Abnegation, the question was where did she belong. It is this hunger for answers that drives her to Erudite. But things are not as they seem; there's blood in the water and corruption runs deep.
Relationships: Tris Prior/Original Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	Blood In The Water

There is one mirror in my house, behind a locking panel in the hallway. I am only allowed to stand in front of it once every three months when my mother cuts my hair. The curls fall in a dull auburn red ring around my feet.

Even when I am standing in front of the mirror I am not really supposed to look, but I do anyways. My mom’s eyes catch mine in the mirror and I know that I’ve been caught. But still I look. Big brown eyes, round nose, white patches breaking up the brown skin.

In a half hour those patches will be gone under a thick layer of brown makeup. Too distracting, my parents say. It draws attention to me that I don’t need. I disagree, in the privacy of my own mind. Is it really such a crime to want attention?

My mother pulls all of my thick curls back into a knot, held in place by many pins and a strained elastic. She smiles at our two reflections instead of scolding me. Mom’s nice like that.

“My, you’ve grown, Beatrice,” she says even though I’m as short as I was the last time. I tell her this and she chuckles. “No, you look older. Mature. You look like a woman.”

I don’t feel like a woman. I feel like a barely sixteen year old moron about to make the biggest decision of my life tomorrow.

“Are you nervous for today?”

I bite the inside of my cheek. Aptitude Test day, when every sixteen year old in the city is administered some sort of test that we’re not allowed to prepare for or given any information about that will determine what faction we belong to. Amity, the kind; Candor, the honest; Erudite, the intelligent; Dauntless, the brave; or my people, Abnegation, the selfless. To choose my family or to abandon them. To declare to the world what I believe. When I think too long about choosing I feel faint.

“Were you?”

“No.” She gives me a tight smile. “I was terrified.” She squeezes my shoulder. In the places my patches don’t cover, we almost have the same skin tone. “Go get your makeup on and I’ll meet you downstairs for breakfast.”

“Thank you for cutting my hair, Mom.”

“Of course. I love you, darling.” She kisses my cheek. I think my mother could be beautiful in a different world. Her brown hair hangs in waves when she takes it down at night and her eyes are big like mine with long lashes. But Abnegation has no use for beauty.

“I love you too.”

I don’t love going into the bathroom and taking out my paints from the cabinet. My modest gray clothes cover most of the areas, but places like my neck, my hands, and my face I must cover up with liquid foundation that when it sets takes hard scrubbing with a special cleaner to get off. Going around my eye is always the worst, I almost always wind up poking myself with the brush.

Downstairs, my brother is making breakfast and my father is sitting at the table reading the paper. Some people call my father too sharp, and he is sharp. His jaw is sharp, his dark eyes are sharp, his close cropped hair makes him look severe, but I try my hardest to only see the good in him.

My brother hums as he prepares our simple meal, the sun streaming in from behind, casting his dark skin in a golden glow. We don’t really look alike, we don’t act alike either. He is thin and gangly with much darker skin and eyes like our father’s. He is also the model Abnegation son; patient, quiet, thoughtful, always seeing others around him. I am, what was it they called me, impulsive.

“Beatrice,” my brother looks up from his cooking to smile at me. “Good morning, how did you sleep?”

Terribly. I was up most of the night with the books I’d taken from the library when I volunteered there the week prior. The librarian saw me and just said I could have them if I wanted them so much. After that I just tossed and turned until sunrise, only slipping into sleep as the first rays broke through my blinds.

“I slept fine. You?”

“Well, thank you,” he replied. He began to plate our plain breakfast and bring it over to us. A plate in each hand, one balanced on his right arm, and the last on his head. 

“Please be careful,” says our mother, clearly preparing for it all to come crashing to the ground.

“I’ve got it,” he says with the confidence of someone who’s done this a dozen times. He sets them down before us with a little bit of flourish before taking the last one off his head and setting it down in his own space.

“Caleb,” says our father, “next time ask for help. That’s what the rest of us are here for.”

He nods. “Yes, father, I’m sorry.”

“No need to be sorry, just keep it in mind.”

The table is quiet as we eat. Outside I can hear the birds chirping and see the morning sun shining. It’s going to be a beautiful day, shame about having to take the test that will determine the rest of my life.

My father finishes first and gets to his feet. “I’m going to head out. Beatrice, Caleb, you two should as well.”

“Yes, father,” says Caleb.

He disappears into the living room and up the stairs to his bedroom while Caleb and I finish our food. My mother gets up not long after my father has gone. I wash the dishes and Caleb waits for me. None of us talk. Sometimes the silence kills me, sometimes I think it is beautiful. I’m not sure what today is.

My mom comes back with her bag and hugs us both. “I hope you two have a wonderful day.”

How can we when we’re facing down the Aptitude Test?

My father waves to us one more time before leaving and then Caleb and I are alone. He moves behind me to fix some imperfection in my hair. When he’s satisfied he slings his bag over his shoulder and we’re ready to go.

Good mornings like these are when I feel the guiltiest for ever even thinking about leaving.

* * *

Caleb and I always walk to school. It takes longer, but our excuse is that our seats on the bus could be given to other people than us. Really the whole thing just stinks of exhaust and there’s too many people anyways. 

Caleb watches the people around him carefully, hands clasped behind his back as he walks. I don’t know how he does it, how he sees everyone around him and not himself, not me either. The only time he takes notice of me is when I’m messing something up, which happens often. But Caleb never has to be asked for help, he just does it, it’s natural. He takes extra volunteer hours and practically cleans the house for fun. In Abnegation, we aren’t allowed to do a lot. We aren’t allowed to do anything that doesn’t in some way serve others. We’re allowed to knit and sew clothes and blankets for the factionless, tend to the community garden, prepare food also for the factionless, or go find some volunteer work that could use more hands, and not much else. Unfortunately, I’m no good with knitting, sewing, or gardening, or cooking, and frankly I’d rather just stay in the house than do the manual labor that no one else wants to. Call me selfish if you want, a bad Abnegation, but if I’m being honest it just doesn’t matter to me all that much.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to help people; of course I want to help people. I just think that there are bigger ways that I can be doing it. My father tells me that the beauty of Abnegation is that it is strong because of its community; no one person can affect real change no matter how powerful they think they are, but a whole bunch of people all working toward a common cause can change the world as we know it.

 _‘Think of it like a machine,’_ he tells me, _‘every person is a single moving part. The only reason that everything works as well as it does is because everyone plays the role they’ve been assigned.’_

On some level I know what he’s getting at. On another I don’t understand why that means we’re not allowed to play games with the other kids, what that has to do with being selfless. I tried to ask him once and he just sighed and looked so tired that I took it back.

“Beatrice,” Caleb hissed. His finger hooked into the back of my dress and nearly caught me off balance. When I whip around to look at him, I realize that I almost walked right past our school. “Focus, please.”

I right my dress and fold my arms, hating the way that he treats me like I’m a child even though I’m only ten months younger. He doesn’t have to do this, I can take care of myself. I twist a curl that’s come loose from my bun around my finger.

Caleb sighs through his teeth and tucks it behind my ear. “I’m just trying to help.”

“Well, drop it,” I snap. “Stop trying to ‘help’ me.”

He frowns.

“I know.” I sigh. “I _know_.” I don’t get the chance to say anything else because as soon as we’re through the large double doors, he’s rushing off to class.

It’s always been this way between us. I mess up, he gets annoyed and fussy, I snap; it’s how we are. It’s not all fighting of course, and I love him to death and back, but it’s hard not to fight with a brother that’s better than you in every conceivable way. Still, I know he loves me and I love him.

I move slowly towards my class. The worst thing about Abnegation is the loneliness. It’s hard to make friends when you’re not allowed to talk about yourself. I’m better off than some other people, at least I have my brother for company, but still I wish that I just had some friends of my own.

A blur of shiny gray outside draws my attention toward the window. Every day, just five minutes before class starts, the train that carries the Dauntless students arrives. The train never stops, the students just jump. Some of them jump into a roll on the dull green grass. They run toward the doors, talking and laughing all the while.

I watch them when I can, admire is really a more accurate word. They always look so happy, like just their morning routine is more fun than I’ve had in my entire life. It probably is actually. The idealist in me wants to be like them, to be as loud and carefree as they are. That could never happen of course; even if I could somehow work up the courage to actually leave Abnegation, it would be completely stupid of me to think that I – someone who has literally never done anything adventurous in my entire life – could ever make it in Dauntless.

Still, a girl can dream, right?

I start to run to get to my first class. Watching the Dauntless always makes me late. Not as late as them, but late enough that everyone in the room looks up when I walk in and that’s just about the worst thing that can happen to an Abnegation.

I don’t have time to dream. Not here. Not now.


End file.
